ski 2010

The girls and I took a trip to visit mom and BB in Mountain City. Mom met us at Appalachian Ski Mountain on the way.  We spent half the day yesterday skiing. The girls have skied twice before but it has been 2 years. We spent about 30 minutes on the bunny slope reminding ourselves how to do it. The rest of the afternoon we went up and down the same slope and the girls had a blast. It started snowing towards the end of the afternoon and has been snowing off and on ever since. We woke up to about 6 inches of snow. We plan on sledding the rest of the weekend.

It turned out to be a beautiful weekend for playing in the snow. We miss you Daniel! Enjoy the slide show. I think that if you click on it you will go directly to the picasa album and might be able to see the pictures better.

It felt like spring

We had already planned to get our spring seedlings started last weekend but it was a special treat to have the weather turn perfectly warm for us. Daniel and I had spent several weeks thinking and planning this year's garden and browsing through our favorite seed catalogs. We sat down together to get the final count of our seed inventory and organize our first seed order of the year. We had also searched the web and our library at home for the best seed starting mix recipe. This is the first year we have attempted to make our own soil mix.

We are still harvesting winter crops including bok choi, cabbage, kale, and broccoli. No brussel sprouts yet, but they are still growing.

Here's the greens and cabbage we brought in this week.

Mixing the ingredients for our soil mix which included peat moss, composted manure, lime, kelp, and topsoil.

Taking a break for the water slide. The girls had the idea to pour bottles of water that they got from the rain barrel on the slide. Too bad it's blurry--you can tell they are having a blast.

Here's the final product. Three trays of spring veggies and one of flowers. Each tray has 72 plants. We've stacked them with the plastic tray on top to try to hold in as much moisture as possible. Our first sprouts should be coming any day.

Playing around

I wanted to post some pictures of us playing with some of the new Christmas toys.  We have gotten the Duo Scope out a few times and looked at all of the slides that it came with. Then they made their own with some water and dirt from a plant. We actually spotted a tiny single celled organism in the plant water. The microscope is a "Duo Scope" which means it can be used to look at microscopic things on slides as well as bigger objects like bugs, dirt, and other small objects. Here's the link if you are interested.

 

 

Here's a picture of Arianna using her new digital camera. You can see the face paint on her cheek also. I got them a pack of face paints and they have already used almost all of it. I've been impressed with all the designs they have come up with and drawn on each other's faces. This was a great gift idea (they had been asking for it) so here's the link if you are looking for something creative to get for a child.

cousins

The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins the entire week we were in Baton Rouge and Jackson. Here's a few pictures from the day we spent at my dad's house. The girls opened a few presents then spent the rest of the time playing outside.

Here's dad and their cute little dog Gadget. He's so silly and loves playing with my dad's hair when he sits down in his chair. They say he can spell since he gets so excited when they say, "Gadget, you want a T... R...E...A...T?" It's hilarious.

Here we are in Jackson visiting more cousins, opening more presents, and having a good time.

 

I got to spend some time with my grandmother who is healthy and happy and will be 98 years old next month.

 

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning seems so long ago. Here are a few photos from the busy day.

We opened presents to and from each other first thing. It was still dark outside. The girls actually woke up at 2am trying to come out and start their day but I heard them talking and told them to go back to sleep. They were very disappointed. I can remember it being very hard to go to sleep on Christmas Eve when I was their age.

We took a short break and enjoyed some homemade monkey bread. This is what Daniel's family had every year and we are continuing the tradition.

Here they are in their new feetsie pjs enjoying some candy from the stockings.

Daniel's family from came down from Charlotte bringing more gifts and food. We shared a wonderful feast. It's always a pleasure having them here. We missed Stephen and Liz who couldn't make it down this year.

The Kruideniers left late in the afternoon and after a few rounds of the game Catch Phrase. Next, Mimi and BB came in from Tennessee. They gave Arianna this beautiful violin that she has been asking for since the fall. They gave Ellen a microscope which we have been figuring out these past few days. More pictures of that to come.

The day after Christmas we drove down to Baton Rouge and Jackson, MS for Christmas part 3 and 4. Stay tuned for more photos of that trip in the next post:)

Christmas Eve

Grandaddy William came over and gave us all Cashmere scarves for Christmas.

We shared a meal together before Grandaddy drove back to Charlotte. Thanks grandaddy!

 

We read the Christmas Story and the girls went to bed early since they were so excited about Christmas morning and all the family that they were about to see.